It wasn’t just the words, although the words said plenty.
“I’ve come to terms with it. I see what’s happened in other sports. I see what’s happened in other businesses. And, honestly, I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that this is, you know, this is what’s going to happen. It’s very hard to keep up with people that have more money than anyone else . . . that’s sort of where my head’s at.”
But Rory McIlroy’s body language was just as eloquent as he said those words last Wednesday at a pre-tournament press conference at the Canadian Open.
The look of resignation on his face suggested that he knew there was nowhere else for him to go as a professional sportsman – that the merger of the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the money behind the LIV Golf tournament he has loathed for 12 months, had left him completely exposed.
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As Kevin Clark succinctly put it on American sports website The Ringer – “McIlroy and the rest of the PGA loyalists learned a very valuable lesson about modern sports (or modern life) on Tuesday: If you do not sell out, someone will sell you out.”
After a year of going out to bat fearlessly and repeatedly for the PGA Tour, that same tour had blindsided him with the news that they would cease all litigation with LIV immediately, and would start working together for the betterment of golf around the world, or some such pabulum.
It has been a banner month for nation states and their sporting playthings. Karim Benzema, the reigning Ballon d’Or winner, will join the Saudi Arabian team Al Ittihad. He is only the latest of what looks like many new arrivals to that league.
Manchester City won their treble, beating Inter Milan in the Champions League final on Saturday evening, and completing the project that Abu Dhabi began in 2008. It took them 15 years to win the Champions League, and it seemed long overdue by the time it finally happened.
Newcastle United are in the Champions League, 18 months after the PIF of Saudi Arabia bought them, and after one of the most unlikeable seasons of top-level football I’ve ever seen played by one club.
Many Manchester United fans took a look at City winning the Treble, or at Newcastle United fans gleefully overlooking the human rights abuses, the bone saw, the anti-LGBT+ laws; and somehow thought – yeah, we’d like some of that.
The ownership bid from Qatar which would signal the end of Manchester United as a legitimate footballing institution is still being considered, amid widespread but not yet unanimous support from fans.
Rather than that unease growing were the bid to be successful, past experience suggests United fan sentiment would harden against outside criticism, and support would gradually coalesce in favour of their new owners.
Kylian Mbappé’s attempts to squeeze more money out of his Qatari paymasters at PSG on Monday before moving to Real Madrid was a reminder that PSG exists as the nadir of Gulf sports-washing projects, an organisation that manages to be as brainless as it is soulless.
These stories landing one after another after another obviously has a cumulative effect. It’s only natural that you start to ask just what you can believe in – and to take comfort in the things that still ring true.
Leinster and Munster, for all their faults, are still teams made up largely of local players who grew up supporting their club. The League of Ireland is enjoying a renaissance, particularly in Dublin, as more and more fans discover the simple joys of Dalymount or Richmond Park or Tolka Park on a Friday evening.
I was going to write a column this week about Clare’s decision to play Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds backfiring at a crucial moment, when a referee made what many people might call a hometown decision in the last seconds of a game to deny them a free that would have taken them to extra-time.
Or perhaps there was 900 words in the fact that there is no game in the All-Ireland senior football championship this weekend that would be a dead rubber if there were only two teams qualifying from each group – a lesson that might be taken on board in advance of of next year.
But really, is a county board granting home advantage to rivals just so their own fans can avoid a traffic jam in Charleville that much of a crime? Maybe a sporting body that puts supporter convenience ahead of competitive fairness is crazy, but in an endearing way.
Is the fact that the last 25 years have seen the most drastic changes in how we play off our All-Ireland championships not enough of a reason to show some patience as the latest big idea beds in?
Shane Lowry might end up winning enough money on the new Saudi-controlled PGA Tour to put in an ambitious bid to buy the Longford County Board, but for now it seems the GAA is safe enough from the pernicious influence of Gulf money.
Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said at last year’s Canadian Open that no player has ever had to apologise for being a member of the PGA Tour. We may hope that a similar sentiment about being a GAA member lasts a little longer than 12 months.
